The Kraken
by FireArcade
Summary: A copdoc one shot. Kinda smutty. Lauren and Tamsin are sent out to recover the ink of the fabled Kraken. Seasickness and shenanigans ensue.


It was the request for a favour Lauren knew was coming. Or at least she should have.

"That doesn't sound like you're offering me a choice Evony."

The Morrigan's eyes narrowed in. Her mouth drawn to a pout but she spoke with a tone that ensured her words could in no way could be misconstrued. "Dark is as dark does darling."

It wouldn't be all that bad Lauren thought. A visit to Scotland. A week at sea in the North Atlantic chasing the fabled Kraken Underfae that lived in the deep off the coastal north of Aberdeen. A team would take her out on a trawler and fish the beast up from the deep. When they caught it, the doctor was to dissect it and bring back its ink sac.

Lauren was well aware of the famed mystic properties of the Kraken's ink. It was said to be useful in the appliction for everything from making a person fall in love or exploding hearts if applied in just the right way. Unfortunately Lauren also knew that it was equally renowned among the elite Fae families as the base for the best and most expensive mascara in the world. And yes, it was Evony's preferred brand.

Lauren was never told she'd have a security escort for the trip and it wasn't until she boarded Evony's private jet that she found out it would be a familiar face to boot.

"Tamsin?"

The valkyrie, already settled in for the flight with feet up and eyes closed, at least managed to get something of a response out.

"Yup."

That exchange preceeded what was to be seven hours of silence from Toronto to Edinburgh. When the plane landed the two women found a car waiting for them. They were to drive to the coastal town of Montrose where they'd meet with their trawler captain and continue on together to Aberdeen. Tamsin drove and had no arguments from Lauren who was keen to take in the sights that sat beyond the thick broth of fog over the Firth of Forth.

"How are you sea legs Tamsin?" Lauren enquired breaking the eighth hour of virtual silence between the two.

"Valkyries and vikings. It's in our blood."

Lauren wondered whether the valkyrie's viking stock also leant itself to a natural desire to run ransack over coastal villages and drag redheaded woman by the hair into bushes. She paused over the tall woman's stern face as she concentrated on her driving and suspected so.

Staring out the window as the sleet fell heavy Lauren contemplated the temperature outside. She had known that Scotland would be cold. It was February and truth be told there could not possibly be a worse time to be travelling to the Nordic north of the United Kingdom. To be out on it's seas too. It was madness at this time of year. Nothing demonstrated the brutality of the cold of this place more than the Highland cattle or the indomitable _hairy cews_ as the locals called them. Part cow, part woolly mammoth and wholly ridiculous. When your nation's livestock evolves to wear coats you know it's cold.

The stop off at Montrose was brief. It involved pulling their trawler captain out of a bar fight and paying a tab that had somehow run into more than a thousand pounds. Eion Muir was a Perseus Fae, a son of the sea and like most Perseus men and women was gifted in the art of both catching fish and drinking like one. Tamsin and Lauren managed to get him into the back of their car and he slept the remainder of the drive to Aberdeen. He'd have a night to sober up before they set off pre-dawn with the rest of their crew.

oOo

It was a cold start to a dark morning. Pre-dawn and Lauren was dockside, the hood of her windbreaker pulled over her head and down to her eyes. The full force of the weather was belting off the seas. The doctor felt somewhat terrified as she stood on terra firma simply looking out onto the black chopped water of the Aberdeen estuary.

Eoin Muir, sober but still sweating whiskey on an ice cold morning, stood next to Lauren shaking at a shiver, "Och, it's chankin out here! I cannae believe your Morrigan has us out in this."

Just hearing a Perseus complain about the sea conditions almost stopped the already terrified doctor's heart. In that instant of dread Tamsin wandered down and joined the two dockside. The valkyrie looked out onto the bay and towards the rusted red trawler that bobbled in front of them.

"That piece of shit is taking us out into the middle of the Northern Atlantic to capture a Krakan?" the valkyrie asked.

"Aye" Muir nodded his eyes not leaving the vessel he knew so intimately.

Tamsin shrugged her shoulders gave Lauren a solid slap on the back and walked off calling "permission to board Captain." Lauren wondered whether she should turn and run.

oOo

There are unnaturally cold waters that drift from the sills of the Faroe-Shetland channel, breathing ventilated life into the deep of the Atlantic and oxygenating the existence of the monsters that lurk there. But monsters are not the only things fed by the colliding currents of cold and warm. Wild weather, nausea and sleep deprivation. Those things too are borne of the north.

Lauren held fast. As soon as they reached the open mouth of the bay it began. These are not waves, she thought, these are swarming mountains of water that crest and fall. As the initial violence of vomiting overwhelmed the doctor she prayed for the sea to swallow them whole and to wash with it her seasickness away.

On that first day Lauren clung to her bunk in a state unyielding paralysis. She lay like that until the retching contracted across every muscle of her stomach and she threw herself towards the bucket that was wedged beside her bed. She begged for her perception and sense of movements to find peace, to come together and provide her with even a momentary ceasefire that might allow her to sleep through this hell. She had vague recollections of Tamsin checking in on her, leaning in the doorway of their tiny shared cabin. There may have even been a fresh water filled sponge brought to her mouth and squeezed but what was real and what was fictional the doctor could no longer say. She had no idea whether it was night or day and could scarcely hold open her eyes to dispute it either way. Day one was unrelatenting. It was vile and it was painful. With her head leaned over the bucket and marionette like strings of saliva peristiting from her lips, Lauren cursed her farming and bog ancestry and wished instead for a seafaring past.

Day two came and there was no relief in both the squall and accompanying motion sickness the doctor was experiencing. Any hopes Lauren held for her body adjusting to the conditions were almost lost. It wasn't that the valkyrie was unsympathetic to the human's plight it was just that she was not trained in the art of knowing how not to look like she didn't give a shit.

"Come on Doc, up. Up you get."

Lauren had no more spacial awareness. Up was down and down was sideways. She groaned in protest at the woman's touch. "Don't touch me Tamsin please."

"We need to get you into the fresh air Doc, the fumes down there would kill a Pontianak and that's saying something."

Lauren knew Tamsin was right but at some point over the course of thirty hours the smells of petrol fumes, fish guts and vomit had turned into a piercing yet comforting musk.

As she was pulled above deck Lauren's eye flickered in distress as she adjusted to the light. She whimpered as she caught a glimpse of the continuing walls of water. Salted rapid fire of spray flew across her face as Tamsin steadied her on her feet.

"Better?" The valkyrie asked.

Lauren responded by vomiting on the taller woman's waders.

"You're killing me Doc."

oOo

It was three full days at sea before the human could move of her own accord. She walked to the upper deck, past the cockpit, along the gunwale and towards the tip of the bow. The boat was facing towards the horizon and Lauren was desperate to inch herself closer to it.

"Och, I've seen some minging shite pulled up from these seas but none quite as reteched as you look right now lassie." Eoin Muir cracked unwisely to the as he oiled up the enormous winch that sat amidships.

Lauren held to the bulwark, clinging with it to the last pieces of her civility. "Where's my Kraken Muir?" She snapped, her tired eyes flaming. "I thought you were a fisherman?"

"Now now lassie, you should be careful what you wish for. There's an evil in that beast that even I'm in no rush to find. When the Kraken wakes we'll know all about it."

Muir sounded like a man who had woken a Kraken before. Lauren wanted to ask and to understand where the myth of the beast started an ended. Just looking at the blank emotionless expression that filtered across Muir's face compelled her to resist.

oOo

In the galley Tamsin sat with two others that Lauren recognized from the loading at the dock. She couldn't remember their names or positions but looking at them now, slobbering and pissed she took them for mainstays of Muir's crew. The slumped over valkyrie was swaying with the motion of the boat, she seemed barely conscious beside them clinging to her whiskey bottle.

"Well, half the crew drunk and below deck, I guess it makes sense why we haven't had a successful fishing trip." Lauren was in no mood to celebrate her newly found sea legs.

Squeezed in next to Tamsin was an old man. His sunken cheeks and black circled eyes spoke mapped what was a long lifetime. He lifted his finger accusatorily towards the doctor. "So says the woman who's been below deck for nearly three straight days." The comment drew laughter from his two drinking companions.

Lauren was offended, "I was hardly resting." Her attempt at defence made her sound like a scolded child.

The old man lifted his cup in salute to the human before devouring the remnants of his whiskey in a solid single breath. He slammed his cup down and let the warmth of the liquor settle in his chest. The old man pushed Tamsin to slide out of the booth. The valkyrie got to her feet almost without opening her eyes. Her three drinking companions fell out behind her. Once they'd removed themselves the the tall blonde collapsed back into her place at the table, reaching for her bottle as she lay her head back down.

The old man walked up to Lauren and she fidgeted as she watched his staggered approach. The woman's head involuntarily recoiled at his revolting stench when he presented in front of her. She was sure she heard him sniff her before his rhythmic northern burr danced in her ear. "You certainly weren't working lassie and on this boat there's only workin' and drinkin' everything else is restin'."

Lauren said nothing as the derelict team of cephalopod hunters stomped away. She made her way to the booth and pushed into the seat next to the valkyrie.

"Why are you here?" Lauren asked.

Tamsin lifted her head. "Get away. Come home. See a Kraken. Losofreasons." The woman slurred out.

"Hey." Lauren nudged her as her eyes settle into a barley conscious state. "Have you seen a Kraken before?"

Tamsin's eyes rolled in her head as she attempted to find focus. "Yeh."

"And?" Lauren asked, this time pulling the vakyrie up by the shoulders to stop her head from resting on the table.

"_Beautiful_." The valkyrie breathed out.

Lauren watched the woman's lolling head as it swayed with the rise of the waves. "And terrifying right Tamsin? Beautiful and terrifying?"

"Nope." The word popped from the valkyrie's lips, "just beautiful." She bought the whiskey bottle to her mouth and tried to match the swaying so it could connect with her lips. All she managed to do was spill the drink on her sweater.

"Don't they attack ships? Feed on human sailors?" Lauren pressed on.

"Hey!" Tamsin said pointing a finger into the doctors chest. "Provocation."

"Wait. What? Are you saying they don't attack unless provoked?"

"Yup." Tamsin attempted a wink. She instead blinked tightly.

Lauren rolled her eyes. "But I've seen the records, the archives. They say they're to be feared."

"They?"

The doctor scoured her memory. "Sailors. The Morrigan. Muir. Jules Verne for Christ's sake."

Tamsin lifted her bottle towards the doctor. "Tennyson."

"Tennyson?" The woman shook her head in an attempt to understand. "His poem?"

"Yup."

Lauren searched the edges of her mind. The small corners where she hid the memorised words of literature that she loved. Tennyson. His words where there somewhere but buried deep and her delay in finding the prose was noticed by the valkyrie who was suddenly on her feet, whiskey bottle sitting over her heart. "_In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die_." Her eyes cleared and her voice steadied. "They know." She said lowering herself back into the booth. "They know they'll die defending themselves and still they rise. Now that's a hero I'd liken to take to the Great Hall"

"What are you saying?" Lauren asked.

"I'm saying they know." Tamsin leaned in close to the doctor. "When we drag that Kraken to the surface it will suffocate. Evony will get her ink and another beast will be lost."

Lauren groaned, the reality of what she'd been asked to do dawning on her. This was a hunt and she was the game master. "Is there a way to get the ink without killing the Kraken?"

The valkyrie shrugged her shoulders. "I guess so. If you could keep it still."

That was a challenge the doctor was willing to rise to. "If I could work out a tranquilliser would you help me to do it?"

The valkyrie eyed her with suspicion for a moment before charging her bottle of whiskey. "Hell yeah. I'm in."

oOo

"No fuckin chance. You cannae do it." Muir was steaming. His whiskey tainted breath spat in Lauren's face.

"You have enough on the boat for me to mix a very potent tranquilliser. We can do it. All you need to do it get the Kraken to the sorting area and I'll be able to stabilise it."

"It'll sink us."

"Can you get into the sorting area or not?"

"Aye. Most of it. But it won't just lie steady for you."

"Leave that to Tamsin and me. You just fish it up."

"You're out of you mind. Nobody's ever done this before."

"That's kind of my thing." Lauren said smirking as she made her way back to her cabin. When she arrived she found Tamsin asleep, a light snore emanating from the bunk. "Tamsin, wake up. We need to discuss tactics."

The valkyrie pulled the sheet over her head. Groaning. "Urgh. Doc. Fuck. Off."

"I thought you said you were up for this?"

"For what?"

"For trying to capture the Kraken alive."

Tamsin rolled over lifting her head from her pillow. "You were serious about that?"

"You weren't?"

Tamsin simply moaned and rolled back.

Lauren went to the edge of the bed and sat down. "Listen. I can make this tranquilliser but I need your help."

"Shit doc, not sure I'd know any more than you about mixing a tranquilliser."

Lauren shook Tamsin by the shoulders, attempting to stir her once more. "No. I have a plan. Are you up for this or not? If you're not then Muir gets to kill the Kraken."

"Alright. Geez doc. I'm in."

oOo

Muir's crew looked ready to kill Lauren. They were not happy at all. The doctor herself was oblivious to the their deathly glares. Or at least seemed so. The motorised winches were working hard on the upper deck. Smoke billowing as the ropes burned. The deep water trawling nets laid into the ocean. Undiscriminating and all consuming. Lauren watched in the sorting room as fish and sea life of all descriptions powered onto the conveyor belt. Some were culled, other's let loose. Some simply suffocated on the the sorting room floor. The seas were beginning to rise heavy and the boat began crashing from side to side. Lauren got her first sense that the Kraken might be near when the contracting iron of the trawler began to scream and the nose of the ship pulled upwards unnaturally. She looked across the sorting room to Tamsin who was leant against the door. The valkyrie nodded. It was time prepare.

"It's in the nets!" Came the cry from above, the winch roaring into action as they began to pull in. The boat groaned in complaint as the waves crashed hard and the nets pushed down. When Lauren caught her first glimpse of the Cephalopod she thought perhaps she had erred in judgement. It was smaller that what she expected but with it's flaying tentacles it looked every bit the evil sight of Verne and not a thing of beauty that the valkyrie had described. But that was her fear speaking.

"Tamsin. Now!" Lauren called as the head of the beast pulled through into the sorting room belt. Tamsin made her way to it's great eye and stilled it with her powers of doubt as best she could. Lauren approached and cut into the beast with her three heavy syringes of tranquilliser and within a minute the Kraken was calm enough to pull further along the belt.

"My god." Lauren looked at it in awe. It's tentacular clubs spotted with hundreds of sub-spherical suckers. It's colouring the orange of the the giant squids that were well documented but the Kraken would be twice the size. Thirty feet long at least. Lauren resisted the urge to measure it. To test and poke. Instead she moved to the beak, pulling it up in order to find the ink sac. When she found it she used vial syringes to draw the black ooze out. Done well and the Kraken would replenish the ink when let back into the sea.

The valkyrie and doctor worked quickly and well together. Lauren was impressed with the taller woman's patience and care and could see the woman's respect for her as she worked to remove the ink.

With the last two vials in hand Lauren looked to the valkyrie who nodded her satisfaction as the giant squid on the conveyor belt began to rouse. "We need to get her back into the sea before she suffocates." Tamsin yelled over the noise of the motor. The trawler they could feel was struggling under this barrage of heavy waves and weather.

Lauren turned on the motor of the belt and slowly the squirming beast began it's journey back towards the high seas. Tamsin watched it emotionally. To have lived so long and to have seen so much but this, this was special. To be this close. She knew she would never forget. The monster fell back into the black of the angry sea and both women leaned over looking at each other relieved. Relief is a luxury ill afforded a sea. A loud and desperate call of 'hold tight' came from the upper deck. The two woman in the bowls of the boat barely registered it but they felt the weight of the monstrous wave that pushed the boat onto its side. Both suddenly found themselves on the floor skidding hard and fast into the wall.

"The vials!" Lauren called as she watched the container she had placed them in sitting precariously on the cutting table. They had luckily been caught from falling by the lifted gutter edges. Both women were quickly on their feet but before they could make it to secure the ink another wave crashed down and the trawler was thrown once more mercilessly off its core. Tamsin toppled onto Lauren, the human yelping at the heavy contact. She quickly pushed the valkyrie off her and looked back to the cutting table where the container was now nowhere to be seen.

"Where is it?" She yelled, lifting herself to her knees and darting her head around.

"There." Tamsin pointed on seeing the container sitting on the ground. The valkyrie was quickly crawling over towards it on her hands and knees. Two of the vials had fallen out and were rolling back and forward nearby. She made it to the container and fixed the lid shut once more before reaching out to collect the two rogue vials that rolled past her. She slowly made her way to her feet, grasping at the cutting table and had only just found her balance when the next wave hit. The valkyrie was flaying as she was thrown in the air and towards the floor. The impact was hard and her natural instinct to protect herself in the fall saw her hands slam hard into the floor crushing the vials into her skin. She cried out, looking at her palm which was speckled with shards of glass deeply embedded. The dark oozing ink mixed with the crimson flow of blood that poured out from the wounds.

Lauren was quickly beside her, grabbing the palm away from the valkyrie's shocked eyes. "Let me see." She said as she inspected her hand carefully, gently surveying the depth of the shards. "How do you feel?" She asked. Tamsin could only stare at her blankly her mouth suddenly open.

As had been the case on the two previous occasions there was no swell to warn of the impending wave that knocked the trawler to the edges of buckling. Once more Tamsin was forced onto the doctor, the two fell to the floor with a heavy thud.

"Shit." Lauren said as she wearily raised herself removing her hand which had somehow found its way into Tamsin as they collapsed to the floor. Bringing her palm to her face the doctor could see ink and glass and blood now embedded in her own skin. Lauren was only registering what was happening when she felt the first burst of energy fire through her. She looked up. Tamsin's eyes were staring back at her wild. Something exploded in her as her synapses began to fire. Immediately Lauren knew this was the beginning of the incantation. Whatever the ink had in store for them, it was now too late to stop.

"Tamsin?" It was all the doctor could whimper out as the beginnings of a primal urge stirred in her stomach. A building pressure in her chest and a throbbing between her legs. In front of her the valkyrie grinned seductively like an ancient temptress as she brought her palm into her line of sight. She cocked her head as she began the process of slowly pulling the shards of glass away allowing more of the ink to mix with her blood. With her hand clear of glass the valkyrie brought it to her lips, smiling at the human before she ran her tongue across it, drinking of the essence of valkyire and kraken. Lauren watched on her chest heaving before she looked to her own palm and mirrored the actions of the taller blonde. If it was too late the stop these building desires then all that was left to do was succumb to them.

Lauren pulled her hand away from her mouth leaving a trace of ink and blood on her lips. The speed at which Tamsin's lips were on her own startled her somewhat. Almost as quickly the valkyire was dragging them to their feet where immediately she had Lauren pinned against the wall in an attempt to battle the movements of the boat.

"It's the ink." Lauren moaned out breathlessness as Tamsin sloppily laid kisses up her neck.

"I know." The woman growled into the human's ear in a tone that seemed to suggest that she was disgusted with herself. Disgusted or not at no point did the valkyrie attempt to wrestle back self control. Instead she pushed her hips into the doctor, pinning her hard against the wall before slipping a hand under the human's thigh. Lauren lifted her leg in response, wrapping it around her hip as the valkyrie pushed into her. "Do you want me to stop?"

How the valkyrie had the composure to ask the question amazed Lauren who gave her the only response she herself felt capable of in that moment. "God no."

With that Tamsin lifted the human, turning them around and sitting the doctor on the edge of the conveyor belt. Lauren felt her wader braces removed but all she could now see was the valkyrie. All she could hear were the woman's lascivious words and all she could taste was her breath of rye. The smell however was still very much fish. Fish guts. Even the ancient incantation of the ink of a Kraken couldn't mask the stench.

Though the mystic properties of the prehistoric Fae had got them to this point there was no doubting that this was a human fuck. Ordinary and desperate. Lauren was leant back on the conveyor belt before she really knew what was happening. Fish guts wet across her back. Tamsin looked like she was only just in control above her with hands fumbling and fingers scratching.

Lauren was of course aware. Inside of her mind she marvelled at the science of it all. What a wonderful opportunity to be the experiment looking as it all happened from the inside out. She watched the valkyrie claw at her remaining clothing and felt like cheering the woman on. She knew this was the ink mixed with her blood but as she looked into Tamsin's green eyes she was equally sure that she had never been in need of someone ever before in this way. Only forty-five minutes earlier the doctor would have scoffed at the suggestion of counting the valkyrie among her friends. Now under the controlling device of the Kraken she was in no doubt that she'd give her life and more just to feel Tamsin inside her for a moment. This ink was a dangerous thing indeed.

Tamsin dismounted and Lauren felt a rage rise. "No" she begged out as the valkyrie's body was suddenly off her own and instead the tall blonde was standing above her swaying with the rhythm of the boat. Lauren wondered whether the other woman's buzz was wearing off or whether it felt completely different to her own. "Don't you stop. You can't stop now." The doctor demanded gaining a wry grin from the valkyrie who said nothing for what felt like minutes before she then began to remove her own clothes. "Yes." Lauren groaned out, her sense of sight suddenly burning brightest of the five. The valkyrie got down on her knees before spreading the doctors legs. Lauren could swear she heard her panting when she eyed the prize.

A tongue ran the length of her inner thigh. A hot breath against the cold sea water induced chill that was set on her body. Lauren could only try to contain the need to push down onto the valkyrie. "No teasing." She begged devoid now of even a modicum of self respect. "Inside." Tamsin's eyes seemed to roll back in her head. Deep warm breaths between cold trembling legs.

Lauren felt as though everything in her life was made for this moment. That instant the valkyrie slid her fingers inside her warm soft heat felt like a first. A conclusion arrived at. Whatever happened next didn't matter. Tamsin moved to her feet. The carnal rhythm now set and not stopping for anyone or anything. On top of Lauren it was skin on skin. Thrust met with a corresponding thrust. Moan meeting reciprocated moan. The boat could fail them and the seas undo them. It wouldn't matter if they fell into Rán's eternal nets. So intoxicated were they both that all that truly mattered was that they would be finished in this life together.

The valkyrie's lips were pressed against the human's ear. Breathing and begging. Lauren was clenched now around the fingers inside her. Unable to see. Incapable of speech. When another enormous roll of the sea had the the boat toppling to it's side they simply gripped to each other. The only wave either concerned about being Lauren's as she came against unrelenting fingers again and again.

As Lauren caught her breath the valkyrie sat up, straddling her on the belt, her knees scuffed and sore from the fish remnants all about them. The human, still trembling, sat up to meet her eyes and could see the dark bluette of preternatural still living there. She moved her her fingers down the valkyrie's side. Their eyes not leaving each other until Lauren's fingers sat ready between Tamsin's legs and the valkyrie's lids fluttered shut. Lauren licked her lips, scraping her fingernails across the inside of the woman's thighs which elicited unashamed pleas from the other blonde. A request was all that was required. As she slipped inside with two fingers and then three, Tamsin pulled her in close, biting down on the nape of her neck as she snapped her hips forward time and again. It didn't take long. When Lauren felt the valkyrie wrapped around her tightly, her body and her fingers, she lifted her free hand to the woman's gritted wet hair and pulled her in for one last almighty kiss.

There was no tenderness in the aftermath. Tamsin removed herself and gathered her clothes as the doctor pulled her aching body from the conveyor belt. Lauren still felt a desire streaming through her but the desperate edge was gone. Thoughts and control were leaking back in. Self-consiousness arrived there after. With her mostly damp clothes back on Lauren found the container holding the remaining Kraken ink and the two woman walked back to their cabin. The seas were still rocky but like their ink high, it had lost its power and menace.

oOo

Muir steered the trawler back to Aberdeen. The calm waters of the estuary were met with cheers from the the stinking crew. Lauren was stood in the cockpit with the Captain staring out towards the distant city lights. In the hours since her and Tamsin's unanticipated fucking the two woman had managed to avoid each other. The power of the ink still present as dull ache persisted between her legs. It only intensified when the valkyrie was within close proximity. It was therefore best that the two avoided close proximity.

"So what does your Morrigan have planned for that ink?" Muir asked without his eyes leaving the waters in front of him.

Lauren shrugged. She really wasn't sure. "I don't know for certain."

"It's a powerful elixir. Too powerful my nanny would say. Best left to the beast." Lauren stood quietly but gave an unnoticed nod. She was well aware of the dominion the ink held over those who dared use it.

Muir continued unprompted, his fingers sitting lightly over the helm as they powered close to shore. "In the old days the elder woman of my clan would use it to decide a match between two people. Blood and ink has a special affect on two people to be bound to each other ."

The human huffed. "Blood and ink _would_ make two people feel that way. It's not really _real_ though."

Muir pulled a cigarette from his pocked. Placed it in his mouth and lit the room briefly as her took his first draw. He shook his head to acknowledge Lauren's words before breathing out the pale stream of smoke. "No. That's true lassie." He said as the final exhales of smoke were spoken from his lips. "Blood and ink only has potency between two who _could_ have a future. Not to say it predicts it, but just shows whether they could."

Lauren's eyes had been sat on the water but her head twisted quickly on the man's words. "W-what?"

Muir's face was straight. No sign of stirring on his features at all. "Och aye. It's a very effective judge of the power and passion two people can possess for one another."

Lauren walked closer to the man, so as to get a sense of character. He had to be joking. "But it's used as a sexual stimulant. I've read it."

"True. But only when the ink is dried and smoked with Bluebell and tobacco." This time Muir turned to doctor and smiled. Nodding slightly before returning his gaze to the the approaching wharf ahead. Lauren stood dumbfounded next to him as he called out instructions to rope the trawler in.

oOo

When the crew alighted from the boat Lauren stood on the dock with Tamsin by her side. Her body was swaying after five days at sea and the dull ache between her legs increasing again to a throb with the valkryrie next to her. They looked at each other knowing both was feeling the same thing.

"It's the ink." The valkyrie said rationalising it.

"It's the ink." Lauren agreed, the two staring at each other intently.

The valkyrie's eyes looked to her feet. "Well, you're a doctor, how long until it wears off?"

Lauren let out a deep sigh. She didn't know. "I guess it'll run it's course when it runs it's course.

Tamsin's eyes rolled in disbelief. "So there's nothing we can do?"

"Nothing I'm aware of. I guess we just need to get back to Toronto and put some distance between us." That would be easy enough. Neither of them spent any time together really. It was only a mutual interest in Bo that kept them in anyway connected.

"Yeah. Good. Ok. Let's go." Tamsin barked in agitation. "We've got a day of travel to get through first."

Lauren grabbed the valkyrie's hand as she made to leave. Unsure of why or what she wanted. "Maybe a good nights sleep is in order first." Lauren said the pulsating ache intensifying as she thought of a bed and the valkyrie. Tamsin looked at her hand and took a step forward, clearly thinking it too. "And a shower." Lauren whispered as the taller blonde looked over her.

Tamsin's mouth fell open as she nodded lightly. "Seems sensible doc."

Lauren smiled as the valkyrie crept closer still. The power of the ink suddenly surging within her again."Yes. Sensible."

Muir walked up behind the two and even his presence didn't startle them as suddenly everything once more faded around them. "Closest Inn in jus-a-second away ladies. I'll take your bags." He picked up the two grounded packs and walked on. "You just try to walk up the without getting completely naked. You'll catch your death out here."

Before his sentence had even finished they were kissing again. Barley registering Muir's cries out to follow him.

"It's the ink." Tasmin muttered gutturally in breaths between kisses and attempts at walking.

"Yes. The ink." Lauren agreed.

If this was the ink then Lauren was happy they were suddenly in heady supply. Fuck Toronto. And fuck the Morrigan. All she was interested in was fucking the valkyrie.


End file.
